Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper focuses on a practice-based research project, which used somatic research methods to explore the relationship between digital practices and embodied affect. Processes of tracking or witnessing are commonly used in somatic research as a way of increasing the “felt sense” (after Gendlin, 1977) of the body. Through tracking the narrative of the body, somatic research generates layers of understanding that rest on embodied experience. This paper considers VR, AR and Mocap as forms of digital witnessing (or tracking) that amplify embodied affect and, drawing on Susan Kozel’s work on the poetics of responsivity (2007), considers some of the complexities and limitations of this interactive cycle of movement and trace. The discussion focuses on questions that arose from the process of making a pilot for a digital artwork, commissioned by Keele University, for an AHRC training event focusing on digital creativity and embodied research. The work, made in collaboration with the digital development team at Keele University, explores the act of tracking, of being seen and asked questions such as: what tracking threshold makes movement visible to the mover? What level of digitally registered movement is registered as stillness in the body and, what do we choose to track if we can’t track everything?